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California statistical areas

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 15, 2026
Entity authorityQ5021297
Source-derived summary

The U.S. State of California currently has 42 statistical areas that have been delineated by the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

On July 21, 2023, the OMB delineated seven combined statistical areas, 25 metropolitan statistical areas, and ten micropolitan statistical areas in California. As of 2023, the largest of these in the state is the Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA CSA, encompassing greater Los Angeles.

Statistical areas

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has designated more than 1,000 statistical areas for the United States and Puerto Rico. These statistical areas are important geographic delineations of population clusters used by the OMB, the United States Census Bureau, planning organizations, and federal, state, and local government entities.

The OMB defines a core-based statistical area (CBSA) as the county or counties (or county-equivalents) surrounding at least one densely-settled core of at least 10,000 population, "plus adjacent counties having a high degree of social and economic integration with the core as measured through commuting ties with the counties containing the core". The OMB further divides a CBSA based on population into a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) for those with at least 50,000 people or a micropolitan statistical area (μSA) for those with 10,000 to 49,999 people.

The OMB defines a combined statistical area (CSA) as two or more adjacent CBSAs where the employment interchange rate (percent commuting from A to B plus percent commuting from B to A) is at least 15%. A primary statistical area (PSA) includes all CSAs and any CBSA that is not a constituent of a combined statistical area.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “California statistical areas” as wikimedia list article. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2023—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where California, statistical and areas can be independently traced.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as wikimedia list article. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5021297. Authority coordinates are 37.184, -119.470. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2023.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from California statistical areas” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.